[lojban] Re: Some concerns from a Lojban beginner

[Nick Nicholas <opoudjis@optushome.com.au>]

Message: 6
    Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 18:57:14 -0500
    From: Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>
Subject: Re: Some concerns from a Lojban beginner

>> I thinks it's better to keep the languages separate and let people use
>> the one they think is better.
>
> The main purpose of the toggle/incorporation proposal is that it 
> encourages
> TLI Loglanists to transition to Lojban.  Depending on how they 
> implement
> the toggle and transition dialect, they can start using Lojban style 
> and
> syntax, then start using Lojban cmavo, and then start using Lojban
> vocabulary as they learn it.  It makes switching that much less
> painful.

But no Lojbanist will understand them until they speak full Lojban; 
they'd be talking to themselves if they use Loglan lexis. That's 
perpetuating division, not eliminating it. Two way dictionaries etc. is 
a much more productive --- and honest --- way of addressing this.

> More importantly, it de facto ends TLI Loglan as a separate
> language without playing things out; even today there are people 
> trying to
> revive Volapu:k which was effectively dead the day that Zamenhof 
> published
> the Esperanto Fundamento.

Bob, you should know better than to step on my turf. It took a couple 
of years for Volap"uk to start dying, and it was internal dissent with 
a dictatorial language planner that killed it, not Esperanto; Esperanto 
was simply in the right place at the right time. And the people 
reviving Volapuk are either conlang afficionados or antiquarian 
Esperantists. The analogy you're drawing with Loglan is spurious. It 
would be much more germane to draw an analogy with Ido: but Ido loses 
out by defining itself in terms of Esperanto. ("We're like Esperanto, 
only better!" --- a line that can only attract disaffected 
Esperantists, completely pointless for anyone else.)

IMO, whatever the political motivations, Lojban loses by being defined 
publicly in terms of Loglan. Think how many sleeper cells you pick up 
by saying Lojban is a Loglan --- and then consider how much damage is 
done when Don Harlow, in his description of conlangs, sneeringly refers 
to "Loglan and its offshoot, Lojban."

I recently wrote an article for an encyclopedia of linguistics, 
defining artificial languages. I mentioned 2 logical languages: 
Wilkins', and Lojban. I'm not describing Lojban as an offshoot of 
anything to anybody. We're our own language.

I don't feel like reopening this debate, I was just reminded by the 
mention of Ido. And now that I've thought of it, the toggle really 
sends the wrong message, and will be unworkable anyway if Lojbanists 
don't learn Loglan. Do the wordlists instead (lawyers permitting).

[][][][]                   [][][][][][][][][][]                [][][][]
Dr Nick Nicholas. opoudjis@optushome.com.au    http://www.opoudjis.net
                   University of Melbourne: nickn@unimelb.edu.au
     Chiastaxo dhe to giegnissa, i dhedhato potemu,
     ma ena chieri aftumeno ecratu, chisvissemu.    (I Thisia tu Avraam)


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